Song of the Day 12/14: John Coltrane Quartet, “My Favorite Things”
I totally get it if you’re one of those people who can’t stand Christmas music. Even people who don’t mind it are sick of it by this date. I therefore observe a strict rule about Christmas music: 12 days of it is plenty. So starting today I’ll feature holiday music through Christmas day, then that’s it — no more until next Dec. 14.
So in consideration of those who dislike the mandated music of the season, I’ll start off with a song that mysteriously became a holiday standard despite having nothing to do with Christmas. I’ll get to how that happened later, but first let’s hear it as the canvas for Coltrane’s Jackson Pollack-style tour de force. On Coltrane’s 1961 LP, titled for the song, he took a 14-minute excursion from the melody while demonstrating everything a soprano sax could do. This 1965 European performance is even longer and hotter and gives McCoy Tyner more time to shine.
“My Favorite Things,” as everyone knows, was introduced to the world when Rodgers and Hammerstein opened “The Sound of Music” on Broadway in 1959. Stage star Julie Andrews sang it on a 1961 holiday TV show hosted by Gary Moore (Google him, kids), but there’s nothing overtly wintery about the stage decor.
That was the song’s sole tenuous connection to the holiday until 1964, when it first appeared on a Christmas album by crooner Jack Jones. But why? Billboard solved the mystery two years ago by tracking down the album’s producer, Mickey Kapp.
He told the magazine a song plugger (Google it, kids) from the music publishing division of The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization asked if Kapp, whose father ran an eponymous independent label, would have one of the label’s artists record something from the “The Sound of Music,” which was coming out in early 1965. The film’s producers, the promoter told Kapp, were worried because the show didn’t produce a hit song like “Maria” from West Side Story, and they thought that a hit record would help sell tickets for the big-budget movie.
Kapp told the song plugger that he was producing a Christmas album for Jones, and the promoter suggested the crooner record “My Favorite Things.” “But that’s not a Christmas song,” Kapp protested. The promoter’s solution: “Just add sleigh bells.” They did, and the rest is history.
The film became a hit and the song appeared on several 1965 Christmas LPs, and has since been released on holiday albums by dozens of artists — but, ironically, not Julie Andrews.
